LimitHit
Language: EN

Compare · 15 vendors · checked

Voice AI API prices

Text-to-speech per 1M characters, speech-to-text per hour of audio. Pay-as-you-go list prices from each vendor's own page.

Cheapest TTS: $4 per 1M characters (Google Cloud Standard, Amazon (AWS) Polly Standard). Cheapest STT: $0.04 an hour (Groq whisper-large-v3-turbo).

Text-to-speech, per 1M characters

Cheapest current model per vendor · pay-as-you-go

  1. Google CloudStandard

    $4 per 1M characters

  2. Amazon (AWS)Polly Standard

    $4 per 1M characters

  3. SpeechmaticsSpeechmatics TTS

    $11 per 1M characters

  4. OpenAItts-1 ends 2027-01-06

    $15 per 1M characters

  5. Azure AI SpeechNeural

    $15 per 1M characters

  6. DeepgramAura-1

    $15 per 1M characters

  7. InworldTTS-2 Flash

    $15 per 1M characters

  8. RimeMist v3

    $30 per 1M characters

  9. ElevenLabsEleven v4 Turbo

    $40 per 1M characters

  10. CartesiaSonic-3.6

    $65 per 1M characters

Speech-to-text, per hour of audio

Cheapest current model per vendor · batch or real-time

  1. Groqwhisper-large-v3-turbo

    $0.04 per hour of audio

  2. SonioxSoniox async

    $0.10 per hour of audio

  3. RimeRime STT · Real-time

    $0.12 per hour of audio

  4. SpeechmaticsMelia 1

    $0.12 per hour of audio

  5. AssemblyAIUniversal-2

    $0.15 per hour of audio

  6. InworldSTT 1 · Real-time

    $0.15 per hour of audio

  7. GladiaSolaria-3 · €0.16

    ≈$0.179 per hour of audio

  8. Google CloudV2 dynamic batch

    $0.18 per hour of audio

  9. Azure AI SpeechBatch transcription

    $0.18 per hour of audio

  10. Rev.aiReverb

    $0.20 per hour of audio

  11. ElevenLabsScribe v2

    $0.22 per hour of audio

  12. DeepgramNova-3 Monolingual

    $0.258 per hour of audio

  13. OpenAIgpt-transcribe

    $0.27 per hour of audio

  14. Amazon (AWS)Transcribe batch

    $0.36 per hour of audio

  15. CartesiaInk-2 · Real-time

    $0.70 per hour of audio

Volume and plan discounts are in the notes. Token-priced models (Gemini TTS, gpt-4o-mini-tts) have no per-character price and aren't charted. € converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 on 2026-10-22.

Shutting down

All text-to-speech models

Click a column header to sort · details per vendor below

Text-to-speech API prices: vendor, model and shutdown date, price per 1M characters and notes. Column headers are sort buttons; token-priced models stay last.
Notes
Google CloudStandard $4$4 / 1M characters4M characters free a month.
Google CloudWaveNet $4$4 / 1M characters4M characters free a month.
Amazon (AWS)Polly Standard $4$4 / 1M characters5M characters free a month.
SpeechmaticsSpeechmatics TTS $11$0.011 per 1,000 charactersFirst 1M characters free.
OpenAItts-1 ends 2027-01-06$15$15.00 / 1M charactersReplacement: gpt-realtime-2.1-mini.
Azure AI SpeechNeural $15$15 / 1M charactersEast US. 0.5M characters free a month (F0).
DeepgramAura-1 $15$0.0150 / 1K characters
InworldTTS-2 Flash $15$15 / 1M charactersOn-Demand rate; $7 on Growth.
Google CloudNeural2 $16$16 / 1M characters1M characters free a month.
Amazon (AWS)Polly Neural $16$16 / 1M characters1M free a month for 12 months.
Azure AI SpeechNeural HD $22$22 / 1M charactersEast US.
InworldTTS-2 $25$25 / 1M charactersOn-Demand rate; $12.50 on Growth.
OpenAItts-1-hd ends 2027-01-06$30$30.00 / 1M charactersReplacement: gpt-realtime-2.1-mini.
Google CloudChirp 3 HD $30$30 / 1M characters1M characters free a month.
Amazon (AWS)Polly Generative $30$30 / 1M characters100K free a month for 12 months.
DeepgramAura-2 $30$0.030 / 1K characters
RimeMist v3 $30$0.03 per 1K characters
ElevenLabsEleven v4 Turbo $40$0.04 / 1K characters
ElevenLabsFlash / Turbo v2.5 $40$0.04 / 1K characters
DeepgramFlux TTS $45$0.0450 / 1K characters$1 credit per $1 spent, up to $500, until Dec 31, 2026.
RimeCoda v2 $50$0.05 per 1K characters
CartesiaSonic-3.6 $65$65 / 1M credits (Pro overage)1 credit = 1 character. $38 per 1M on Scale.
ElevenLabsEleven v4 $80$0.08 / 1K characters
ElevenLabsEleven v3 $80$0.08 / 1K characters5,000 characters per request.
ElevenLabsMultilingual v2 $80$0.08 / 1K characters
Amazon (AWS)Polly Long-Form $100$100 / 1M characters500K free a month for 12 months.
Google CloudStudio $160$160 / 1M characters1M characters free a month.
OpenAIgpt-4o-mini-tts ends 2027-01-06$0.60 / 1M text in · $12 / 1M audio out (tokens)Token-priced; no per-character rate. Snapshots 2025-03-20 and 2025-12-15 shut down Jan 6, 2027; replacement gpt-realtime-2.1-mini.
Google CloudGemini 3.8 Flash TTS Preview$0.50 / 1M text in · $9 / 1M audio out (tokens)Rises to $1 / $18 on Jan 1, 2027. 25 audio tokens = 1 second, so ~$0.81 per hour of output audio plus input.
Google CloudGemini 2.5 Flash TTS $0.50 / 1M text in · $10 / 1M audio out (tokens)Token-priced; ~$0.90 per hour of output audio plus input.
SonioxSoniox TTS $4 / 1M text in · $21.50 / 1M audio out (tokens)Vendor estimate: about $0.70 per hour of generated speech.

All speech-to-text models

Click a column header to sort · details per vendor below

Speech-to-text API prices: vendor, model and shutdown date, batch or real-time, price per hour of audio and notes. Column headers are sort buttons; models without a per-hour price stay last.
Notes
Groqwhisper-large-v3-turbo Batch$0.04$0.04 / hour
SonioxSoniox async Batch$0.10$0.10 / hour
Groqwhisper-large-v3 Batch$0.111$0.111 / hour
RimeRime STT Real-time$0.12$0.002 / min from Nov 20, 2026Free until Nov 19, 2026.
SonioxSoniox real-time Real-time$0.12$0.12 / hour
SpeechmaticsMelia 1 Batch$0.12$0.12 / hour
AssemblyAIUniversal-2 Batch$0.15$0.15 / hour
AssemblyAIUniversal-Streaming Real-time$0.15$0.15 / hour
InworldSTT 1 Real-time$0.15$0.15 / hourOn-Demand rate; $0.10/h on paid plans.
GladiaSolaria-3 Batch≈$0.1790.16€ / hour (0–100 h)
OpenAIgpt-4o-mini-transcribe ends 2027-02-26Batch$0.18$0.003 / min (estimated)Replacement: gpt-transcribe or gpt-live-transcribe.
Google CloudV2 dynamic batch Batch$0.18$0.003 / min
Azure AI SpeechBatch transcription Batch$0.18$0.18 / hourEast US.
Rev.aiReverb Batch$0.20$0.20 / hourEnglish.
AssemblyAIUniversal-3.5 Pro Batch$0.21$0.21 / hour
ElevenLabsScribe v2 Batch$0.22$0.22 / hourKeyterm prompting +$0.05/h.
SpeechmaticsStandard Batch$0.23$0.23 / hour
DeepgramNova-3 Monolingual Batch$0.258$0.0043 / min
OpenAIgpt-transcribe Batch$0.27$0.0045 / min (estimated)
DeepgramWhisper Large Batch$0.288$0.0048 / min
DeepgramNova-3 Monolingual (streaming) Real-time$0.288$0.0048 / min (promo)Regular price $0.0077/min ($0.46/h).
Rev.aiReverb Foreign Language Batch$0.30$0.30 / hour
Rev.aiWhisper Large Batch$0.30$0.005 / min
GladiaSolaria-1 Batch≈$0.3030.27€ / hour (0–100 h)
DeepgramNova-3 Multilingual Batch$0.312$0.0052 / min
OpenAIgpt-4o-transcribe ends 2027-02-26Batch$0.36$0.006 / min (estimated)Replacement: gpt-transcribe or gpt-live-transcribe.
OpenAIwhisper-1 ends 2027-02-26Batch$0.36$0.006 / minReplacement: gpt-transcribe or gpt-live-transcribe.
Amazon (AWS)Transcribe batch Batch$0.36$0.0001 / second (us-east-1)$0.006/min. 60 min free a month for 12 months.
Azure AI SpeechFast transcription Batch$0.36$0.36 / hourEast US.
SpeechmaticsEnhanced Batch$0.38$0.38 / hour
ElevenLabsScribe v2 Realtime Real-time$0.39$0.39 / hour
DeepgramFlux English Real-time$0.39$0.0065 / min (promo)Regular price $0.0077/min ($0.46/h).
AssemblyAIUniversal-3.6 Pro Realtime Real-time$0.45$0.45 / hour
Azure AI SpeechMAI-Transcribe-2 Batch$0.54$0.54 / hourEast US, Foundry Models meter.
Amazon (AWS)Transcribe streaming Real-time$0.60$0.0001667 / second (us-east-1)$0.01/min.
CartesiaInk-2 Real-time$0.703 credits / secondDerived: 10,800 credits per hour at the $65 per 1M Pro overage rate. Vendor says $0.39/h on Scale.
GladiaReal-time Real-time≈$0.7620.68€ / hour
Google CloudV2 standard (incl. Chirp) Real-time$0.96$0.016 / min (first 500K min)Drops to $0.004/min above 2M min.
Azure AI SpeechReal-time transcription Real-time$1.00$1.00 / hourEast US. 5 h free a month (F0).
OpenAIgpt-live-transcribe Real-time$1.02$0.017 / min (estimated)

Vendor by vendor

Groq

Speech-to-text
  • whisper-large-v3-turbo: $0.04 · Batch
  • whisper-large-v3: $0.111 · Batch
per hour of audio
Free tier
unknown free plan exists with rate limits; no hour quota stated
Notes
Hosted Whisper models. Per-hour cost from the speech-to-text docs.
  1. Visit Groq ↗
  2. Speech-to-text docs ↗
  3. checked

Soniox

Text-to-speech
  • Soniox TTS: $4 / 1M text in · $21.50 / 1M audio out (tokens)
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • Soniox async: $0.10 · Batch
  • Soniox real-time: $0.12 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
unknown no free quota stated on the pricing page
Notes
Diarization, language ID and translation included in the hourly rate. TTS is token-priced ($4 per 1M input text tokens, $21.50 per 1M output audio tokens), about $0.70 per hour of generated speech.
  1. Visit Soniox ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

Rime

Text-to-speech
  • Mist v3: $30
  • Coda v2: $50
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • Rime STT: $0.12 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
$50 free credits. STT free until Nov 19, 2026.
Notes
TTS metered by characters (~1K per minute).
  1. Visit Rime ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

Speechmatics

Text-to-speech
  • Speechmatics TTS: $11
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • Melia 1: $0.12 · Batch
  • Standard: $0.23 · Batch
  • Enhanced: $0.38 · Batch
per hour of audio
Free tier
$100 in credits. TTS: first 1M characters free.
Notes
Pre-recorded rates shown; real-time rates are not in the page text. Volume discount up to 25%.
  1. Visit Speechmatics ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

AssemblyAI

Speech-to-text
  • Universal-2: $0.15 · Batch
  • Universal-3.5 Pro: $0.21 · Batch
  • Universal-Streaming: $0.15 · Real-time
  • Universal-3.6 Pro Realtime: $0.45 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
Free tier: up to 185 hours pre-recorded and 333 hours streaming, no card required.
Notes
Multichannel audio is billed per channel.
  1. Visit AssemblyAI ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

Inworld

Text-to-speech
  • TTS-2 Flash: $15
  • TTS-2: $25
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • STT 1: $0.15 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
On-Demand includes up to 70 min of TTS or 400 min of STT free.
Notes
Paid plans cut rates: TTS-2 down to $12.50 and TTS-2 Flash to $7 per 1M characters, STT to $0.10/h. Enterprise from $5 per 1M.
  1. Visit Inworld ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

Gladia

Speech-to-text
  • Solaria-3: ≈$0.179 · Batch
  • Solaria-1: ≈$0.303 · Batch
  • Real-time: ≈$0.762 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
50€ free credits.
Notes
Prices in € (≈$ at the ECB rate for ranking). Volume tiers drop Solaria-3 async to 0.12€/h.
  1. Visit Gladia ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

Google Cloud

Text-to-speech
  • Standard: $4
  • WaveNet: $4
  • Neural2: $16
  • Chirp 3 HD: $30
  • Studio: $160
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS: $0.50 / 1M text in · $9 / 1M audio out (tokens) Preview
  • Gemini 2.5 Flash TTS: $0.50 / 1M text in · $10 / 1M audio out (tokens)
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • V2 dynamic batch: $0.18 · Batch
  • V2 standard (incl. Chirp): $0.96 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
TTS: 4M Standard/WaveNet or 1M Chirp 3 HD/Neural2/Studio characters free a month. STT V1: 60 min free a month. Gemini TTS: no free tier.
Notes
Gemini TTS is priced per token (25 audio tokens = 1 second). STT billed per second.
  1. Visit Google Cloud ↗
  2. TTS pricing ↗
  3. STT pricing ↗
  4. checked

Azure AI Speech

Text-to-speech
  • Neural: $15
  • Neural HD: $22
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • Batch transcription: $0.18 · Batch
  • Fast transcription: $0.36 · Batch
  • MAI-Transcribe-2: $0.54 · Batch
  • Real-time transcription: $1.00 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
Free (F0): 5 audio hours of real-time STT and 0.5M neural TTS characters a month. Batch not included.
Notes
Prices are East US pay-as-you-go from the Azure retail prices API (the pricing page renders them client-side). A "Fast Transcription Promo" meter at $0.10/h is listed; the page says a promo runs until Dec 31, 2026.
  1. Visit Azure AI Speech ↗
  2. Speech pricing ↗
  3. Retail prices API (East US) ↗
  4. checked

Rev.ai

Speech-to-text
  • Reverb: $0.20 · Batch
  • Reverb Foreign Language: $0.30 · Batch
  • Whisper Large: $0.30 · Batch
per hour of audio
Free tier
Free credits worth 5 hours of Reverb ASR.
Notes
Rounded up to the nearest second, 15 second minimum.
  1. Visit Rev.ai ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

ElevenLabs

Text-to-speech
  • Eleven v4: $80
  • Eleven v4 Turbo: $40
  • Eleven v3: $80
  • Multilingual v2: $80
  • Flash / Turbo v2.5: $40
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • Scribe v2: $0.22 · Batch
  • Scribe v2 Realtime: $0.39 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
Free plan: 10,000 v4 characters (~10 min) or 20,000 Flash/Turbo characters a month, plus 4h30m Scribe or 2h30m Scribe Realtime.
Notes
API usage is billed in USD, not plan credits. Same per-unit rate on every plan.
  1. Visit ElevenLabs ↗
  2. API pricing ↗
  3. checked

Deepgram

Text-to-speech
  • Aura-1: $15
  • Aura-2: $30
  • Flux TTS: $45
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • Nova-3 Monolingual: $0.258 · Batch
  • Nova-3 Multilingual: $0.312 · Batch
  • Whisper Large: $0.288 · Batch
  • Nova-3 Monolingual (streaming): $0.288 · Real-time
  • Flux English: $0.39 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
$200 free credit, no card required.
Notes
Streaming rates are limited-time promo prices; regular prices shown in notes. Growth plan ($4K+/yr prepaid) is up to 20% less.
  1. Visit Deepgram ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

OpenAI

Text-to-speech
  • tts-1: $15 ends 2027-01-06
  • tts-1-hd: $30 ends 2027-01-06
  • gpt-4o-mini-tts: $0.60 / 1M text in · $12 / 1M audio out (tokens) ends 2027-01-06
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • gpt-transcribe: $0.27 · Batch
  • gpt-4o-mini-transcribe: $0.18 · Batch ends 2027-02-26
  • gpt-4o-transcribe: $0.36 · Batch ends 2027-02-26
  • whisper-1: $0.36 · Batch ends 2027-02-26
  • gpt-live-transcribe: $1.02 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
unknown no free audio quota on the pricing page
Notes
tts-1, tts-1-hd and gpt-4o-mini-tts shut down Jan 6, 2027; whisper-1 and the gpt-4o transcribe models shut down Feb 26, 2027 (deprecations page).
  1. Visit OpenAI ↗
  2. API pricing ↗
  3. Deprecations ↗
  4. checked

Amazon (AWS)

Text-to-speech
  • Polly Standard: $4
  • Polly Neural: $16
  • Polly Generative: $30
  • Polly Long-Form: $100
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • Transcribe batch: $0.36 · Batch
  • Transcribe streaming: $0.60 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
Polly: 5M Standard characters a month; Neural 1M, Generative 100K, Long-Form 500K a month for 12 months. Transcribe: 60 min a month for 12 months.
Notes
Transcribe prices are US East (N. Virginia), from the AWS price list API.
  1. Visit Amazon (AWS) ↗
  2. Polly pricing ↗
  3. Transcribe pricing ↗
  4. Transcribe price list (us-east-1) ↗
  5. checked

Cartesia

Text-to-speech
  • Sonic-3.6: $65
per 1M characters
Speech-to-text
  • Ink-2: $0.70 · Real-time
per hour of audio
Free tier
Free plan: 20K credits a month (~27 min of TTS or ~1h51m of STT).
Notes
Credit-based plans: Pro $5 (100K), Startup $49 (1.25M), Scale $299 (8M). 1 credit = 1 TTS character; STT uses 3 credits per second. Overage: $65 (Pro), $45 (Startup), $38 (Scale) per 1M credits.
  1. Visit Cartesia ↗
  2. Pricing ↗
  3. checked

Left out

  • PlayHT: Shut down: API offline July 2025, service closed Dec 31, 2025 after Meta acquired PlayAI. play.ht did not resolve on 2026-10-23.
  • LMNT: lmnt.com/pricing says "LMNT has shut down" (2026-10-23).
  • Hume: Pricing page renders client-side; no per-unit rates readable yet.
  • Mistral Voxtral: Speech models are priced per minute, but the rates are not on the public pricing page text.

Newsletter

Get pinged when the limits move

One short email when a plan changes. No spam, we're rate-limited too.